Park. — Glaciation of the North Island. 583 



South of Mataroa the glacial till rises on to the summit of the ridges 

 1)ounding the Hautapu Valley, at many places lying at an elevation of over 

 2,000 ft. above the sea, or from 800 ft. to 1,000 ft. above the floor of the 

 valley. 



Near Mr. W. Shewan's house, about two miles south of Mataroa, there 

 is a perched block of andesite measuring lift, by 6-5 ft. by 6 ft., and 

 weighing over 30 tons. 



At Mataroa quarry the audesitic till is seen resting on a fluvio-glacial 

 drift that occupies a gulch in the yomig Tertiaries, This gulch is obviously 

 the gutter or channel in which the subglacial river ran. In Scotland the 

 boulder-clay is frequently found resting on fluviatile drifts lying in ancient 

 valleys. 



The Mataroa drift is mainly andesitic, but there are also present many 

 partially rolled blocks of the harder calcareous sandstone that occurs in 

 nodular form in the blue clays. These blocks are very numerous at the 

 base of the drift ; but they also occur scattered throughout the whole mass, 

 Avhich is rudely stratified, and in places shows current bedding. 



The andesitic till is strongly developed around Taihape, more especially 

 on the west side of the Hautapu Valley. Plate LI shows the drift lying 

 on the hillside near Taihape Railway-station. 



A mile below Taihape, and at many places on both sides of the gulch 

 in which the Hautapu River flows, there are many fine exposures of the 

 re-sorted andesitic gravels formed by the Hautapu River when it ran at the 

 higher flood-level. These gravels can be traced southward almost con- 

 tinuously to the junction of the Rangitikei River. Here and there they 

 form high-level terraces along the course of the river, their upper surface 

 marking the ancient flood-level of the river. They do not rise above the 

 1,450 ft. contour, and descend by a gentle gradient to the junction of the 

 Rangitikei River. The material is mainly andesitic, and there is no diffi- 

 culty in distinguishing it from the glacial till, which consists of large masses 

 of andesite set in a clayey and sandy matrix, and forms a sheet on the 

 spurs and ridges above the 1,450 ft. contour. 



I have elsewhere described the Hautapu andesitic deposit as a boulder- 

 clay or till of glacial origin, and my more extensive examination in November 

 last, in the company of Mr. Hamilton, has more than confirmed my earlier 

 conclusion. 



For the first twenty-five miles nearest Ruapehu the deposit consists 

 almost entirely of clays or sandy material containing blocks of andesite 

 sparsely throughout it. About a mile and a quarter north of Turanga-a- 

 rere andesite boulders are numerous and small in size ; but going down the 

 Hautapu — that it is, further from Ruapehu, the source of the andesite — 

 the blocks become more and more abundant, and also of greater size, until 

 we reach the ridges between Mataroa and Taihape, where we find masses 

 ranging up to 30 tons in weight perched at a height exceeding 2,100 ft.. 

 above the sea, at a point over thirty miles from their source at Ruapehu. 

 On Mataroa Hill the blocks lie at about the same height as that of the divide 

 between the Wangaehu and Hautapu watersheds. 



There is no agency but glacier-ice known to science competent to tear 

 huge masses from their parent rock, transport them over a divide into 

 another watershed, and scatter them in a sheet over an area of several 

 hundred square miles in extent, at their extreme limit over forty miles 

 from their source. And, as previously noted, the greatest development 



